Posted on 07/09/2007 12:29:45 PM PDT by bahblahbah
A lesbian couple in New Jersey has filed a complaint against a Methodist-owned campground, claiming illegal discrimination because their request for a civil union ceremony on the property was denied.
Harriet Bernstein and Luisa Paster in March applied for use of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association's Boardwalk Pavilion for their civil union ceremony, planned for September. The Methodist organization rejected their application and later told Bernstein in an email that it did not allow civil unions to be held on the pavilion.
Bernstein and Paster filed a complaint against the OGCMA in June, alleging illegal discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation.
In their complaint, the couple requested "whatever relief is provided by law" including "compensatory damages for economic loss, humiliation, [and] mental pain." They also demanded that the pavilion be made available for their ceremony.
At a meeting of members, chief administrative officer Rev. Scott Hoffman argued that the campground had every right to prohibit civil unions. He called the pavilion a "church building" that "has always been used for worship services and gospel concerts."
The OGCMA is a Methodist organization, with a board of trustees comprising 10 pastors and 10 lay people. As such, the organization operates according to Methodist teachings, Hoffman said.
"Those who make decisions are bound to the United Methodist Book of Discipline, which states that homosexual unions cannot be performed in church buildings, whether by clergy or lay people," he said.
Hoffman also pointed out that locations not used for worship purposes - including the boardwalk and the beach - were open for civil union ceremonies.
Garden State Equality, a political action organization that represents "the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community," asked supporters to write to the OGCMA, saying the civil unions ban was an affront to the Ocean Grove community.
"It's hard to believe this is happening in our progressive state of New Jersey," GSE says on its website.
The organization contended that the ban was illegal, saying that it "violates the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination because the property is, in fact, public ... by virtue of having been used by the public for many years."
But the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group that is representing the OGCMA in the dispute, said that forcing the pavilion to host civil unions would be unconstitutional.
Brian Raum, ADF senior legal counsel, said enforcing the complaint would intrude on the rights of the Methodists as a religious organization.
"The government shouldn't force churches to violate their own religious principles," he said. "Private, religious property owners have the right to decide what can and cannot take place on their property."
According to the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, entities that "offer goods, services, and facilities to the general public" are prohibited from "directly or indirectly denying or withholding any accommodation, service, benefit, or privilege to an individual" on the basis of sexual orientation.
But according to the ADF, New Jersey is still subject to the First Amendment, and state statutes that limit liberties guaranteed by the Constitution must be overturned.
New Jersey is considered to be one of the most liberal states in America. Last October, the state Supreme Court gave the New Jersey legislature 180 days to provide for civil unions under the law, and the legislature has complied.
Same-sex "marriage" is still illegal in New Jersey, although it is favored by 56 percent of residents, according to a Zogby poll.
That is unbelievable!
You are flawed in your reasoning. This is a religiously owned facility. The minute the government tells religious organizations they have to allow homosexuals to marry at this place is the day you will be kissing your freedom goodbye. This is a favorite tactic of constitution hating liberals. They say since the public has used it over time then it has become public property. They tried this with the Dominoes Headquarters years ago. Since the building was was such a well known place, or something like that, they demanded that Dominoes be denied the right to have a nativity scene on their property since the property (as they said) was 'in effect' public property.
Intersex refers to individuals that have sexually ambiguous genitalia. It’s basically the PC term for hermaphrodite.
Well, this looks like a great test case from the strict Constitutionalist perspective. Even if the Lesbian couple win in the NJ Supreme Court, a case like this is red meat for the current US Supreme Court.
Of course, any competent person appointed to a judgeship would immediately dismiss the case on First Amendment grounds. Seeing as that type of judge isn’t appointed to judgeships in NJ, we’ll have to wait for this to enter Federal courts.
The same logic these people are using would require churches to open their doors to swinger parties if the church ever permitted any non religious function to take place.
This will start happening more and more often, especially if it is successful. And even if the lawsuit is thrown out, if it is prohibitively expensive for the Methodist Church, or extremely distracting, or gives them publicity they don’t want, it might be ragrded as successful by the gay lobby.
I wholeheartedly agree with the point. I was merely expressing surprise that this particular denomination opposes so-called “same-sex” marriage, especially here in NJ. Because that’s not the impression I was given by a very active member of a church of the same denomination in this state.
I’m now glad to hear I was given the wrong impression.
You got a problem with that?
________
Actually, in this situation, yea, I do. There are plenty of situations that would require the kind of response you predict. This isn’t one of them, IMO.
I'll agree with that as soon as the church voluntarily renounces its tax-exempt status.
I'm guessing......
Get with the program! The “compromise” position is to oppose outright same-sex “marriage” but to support civil unions. We’re told that civil unions are very, very different from marriage and thus you can support one without supporting the other.
But once civil unions are established, we’ll be told that the difference between them and marriage is in name only, so why maintain this “separate but equal” system when it’s just a pretence? The same lemmings who bought the argument that CUs and marriage are very different, will then buy this argument.
We see this same manipulation on the federal constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. Currently, we’re told that such an amendment is unnecessary because we need to respect state’s rights, and DOMA protects the states. Nothing to worry about, we’re told, because the Supreme Court has not yet ruled that there’s a “right” to same-sex “marriage”. But if the Supreme Court were to order nationwide same-sex “marriage”, crushing DOMA and state’s rights, we’d then be told that we can’t pass the constitutional amendment because it would take away rights the justices have found to be deeply imbedded in the penumbra of the Constitution.
You are absolutely right. Never give an inch.
When the courts manufacture rights out of thin air, they often elevate them above actual rights embedded in the Constitution.
Take the manufactured right to abortion as an example. Even if such a right existed, it would not follow that the taxpayers are obligated to pay for abortions. I have a right to buy a printing press and publish my political views, but that doesn’t obligate the taxpayers to buy me a printing press if I can’t afford one. Yet, four of the five judges currently sitting on the Supreme Court would rule that the taxpayers are indeed obligated to subsidize abortions. Several liberal state courts, including New Jersey’s, have ruled the same way.
When activist judges create phony rights out of thin air, they often feel compelled to elevate them to an even higher level than actual, constitutionally based rights. Constitutional or long-standing common law rights, such as freedom of religion, freedom of association, legislative power of the purse, parental rights over their children, and other established and even constitutionally embedded rights thus are held to be subordinate to a new right fabricated out of thin air a month ago.
It’s how the Boy Scouts found themselves hauled into court. And while they thankfully won, it was only by a 5-4 ruling. And the Scouts are still being harassed by jurisdictions around the country. Their constitutional right to religious liberty and freedom of association is trumped in the minds of “liberals” by the newly fabricated right to commit sodomy.
TYPO correction: Make that four of the NINE judges. Duh!
It's not my reasoning, at least the way that I would decide something if I were a judge. I'd allow each religion to state what can or cannot be done with its facilities, including whatever "prejudices" they have that are based in doctrine. I'm just predicting how this whole thing is going to play out in the courts, if it ever gets back to the same NJ Supreme Court that mandated either gay marriage or civil union with the exact same set of rights.
Let's say that a church does not require one party in a marriage to be of the faith tradition of that church, but will marry any heterosexual couple who pays the necessary fees. They've now gone from becoming something that serves the needs of their own congregation, to an entity that is providing a general accommodation to the public. The way I read the NJ Supreme Court decision requiring the NJ legislature to establish either marriage for homosexuals, or civil union with 100% of the rights thereof, they put the new institution under the same protections that heterosexual marriage enjoyed.
Imagine a church that accepted people of all races into its membership, but forbade interracial marriage on doctrinal grounds. If an interracial couple who were members of this church were denied the ability to marry inside of it, they might have a claim under the civil rights laws of the state where they were residing. That's what the NJ Supreme Court did, it elevated civil union to the same status of marriage, while allowing it to be called a different name.
Actually I agree with you. This situation does not. My point is that these people will keep pushing and pushing until we reach the one event that will be the last straw.
I think it is no accident that they are suing a Church organization over this. This is, no doubt, part of their ongoing effort to set legal precedent and subvert all opposing organizations to their will. Given time they will begin to sue unfriendly churches for not allowing them to “marry” in their sanctuaries.
Eventually they will begin demanding compulsory “training” and reeducation for our children - in addition to what many children also experience in schools. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible give a brief but rather full psychology of what these deviants ultimate goals are when they demanded that Lot, “bring out these men that we may ‘know’ them.”
I’m a Christian, but when they come for my kids I’m picking up my gun.
I dare you.
Don’t you think that they meant, rights under the state? Forcing a church to allow the use of private property to perform a civil ceremony is not the same as using it to perform a marriage, because no minister is involved. If the church allows civil marriage ceremonies to be performed on the pavilion, then, I agree, a civil ceremony is a civil ceremony.
The church could, however, change their rules to allow only marriages that are performed by ministers of their own church.
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